THE OLDEST MAN ALIVE JOURNAL, DAY 3
This Hub is a series which you can follow like a daily journal. I will probably not have time to write in this journal every day, but perhaps, at least several times a week, but that hasn't happened yet!.
I hope this "journal" will bring inspiration to you, especially to men. I hope it is a nudge or urge to grow love in your own garden. As men, we tend to experience love as a capturing and an enslaving of the person we love. We control and eventually suffocate this precious other. And all of that is about our own brokenness. Has absolutely nothing to do with the person we say we love. NOTHING. Except that perhaps he or she was broken enough to go along with our sick program! Sorry! Check out the initial blog
http://hubpages.com/hub/THE-OLDEST-MAN-ALIVE-JOURNAL
The Oldest Man Alive
So they asked him, "What is your secret? What makes it possible for you to live to such a ripe old age?"
He just sat there for the longest time. He loved to do that in interviews. It drove the reporters nuts. Besides being a lover, he was also a guy, in other words, a control freak!
He finally looked up and answered their question.
"You know, I heard that French woman, who lived to be almost 118, tell you guys that she stopped smoking when she was ninety-seven! I thought that was hysterical.
Yeah, so what is my secret? What has kept me alive all these years? Well, that's pretty simple. LOVE. And to keep that love alive in my soul, I write a love letter every day to the woman of my dreams."
"Who is she?" they pushed him.
"Why do you ask such stupid questions? You gotta know who she is for crying out loud."
"Is she still alive?"
"Another stupid question. Are any of you reporter types intelligent? At all? Come on, of course she is alive. How or why would I write her every day if she were not alive? Soul mates never die. You live on in eachother's hearts, forever. And no matter where you might be living physically, you need to talk to each other every day, in here." And he tapped his heart. "Now, I've told you enough. Leave me be. I have a letter to write.
Dear Beth
What is it about today compared to even yesterday? I miss you every day, but for some reason today, the ache is just plain needling me, poking at my heart, leaving me restless.
I was thinking a lot about the first time you performed that slow graceful ballet while making love to me. I'm not a ten thousand woman man. You know, don't you? How could you tell? Was it my shyness, my inexperience, my deep respect for you? Choose all three if you will! May be I can count the other women in my life on two fingers. Well, the point is, I never experienced such a ballet before. You moved so slowly, so purposefully, so in tuned to your own body, and you kept slipping deeper and deeper into my soul, till it was almost as if you had melted right through my skin. I miss those moments that carried us far beyond any coming to a place so peaceful, I can only call it Home.
Do you remember the time you told me that you wanted both of us to heal whatever it was that was keeping our relationship....what was that word? Yes, thanks for reminding me. FLAWED. You said that we each had "stuff" is what you used to call it, stuff that left our relationship flawed and you were not willing to settle for a flawed relationship, now way no how.
At first, I felt scared. I thought you were saying that I was flawed and you didn't love me anymore. Just like a man, right? We are so sensitive to rejection that we instantly feel it even when it's not there. I remember you stroking my face and surrounding my body with that "nesting" look. The look you told me was a one of a kind look, the look that a woman gets when she is deeply in love.
I can't say I was totally convinced, but enough to begin the work. It's hard to believe that we were both well up in years by the time we decided to do some work on our relationship. I think I was sixty five. I think you were sixty seven. Just kidding. I know you are younger than me!
For some reason, I was hell bent on possessing you. I think that is also a man thing. We think we have to possess our women. See even there, we call you our women--so objectified, and I cringe when I think for how many years I did possess you and unfortunately, you allowed yourself to be possessed. I was so grateful that in our last years, we did not try to possess each other, even though we could still say, You are mine and I am yours.
I think when we stopped possessing each other, we started having those wild dreams of flying alongside each other. I don't know about this dream stuff, but I got to believing that we were flying side by side in our dreams. Who can dispute it? And even last week, I had one of those dreams, and who's to say even then you weren't in my dream, flying along side of me?
I remember waking up one day to the rude realization that our relationship had become exactly like my Mom and Dad's. I felt sick when It was in my face how I had repeated in our relationship every flawed ingredient of their relationship. I remember sobbing for days over that and hoping you would not see it as clearly as I did and perhaps we could move on at some point without you ever seeing it. But you already knew it.
Do you remember how we had both stopped drinking five years before that day but were continuing to "drink" every day in so many other ways? We were both gaining weight beyond that extra padding that us old folks should have just in case.. We watched television incessantly. We each had our separate interests and hobbies, but almost nothing in common, nothing that we worked on together. You were helping people not die alone while we were both dead already. I was out chasing windmills, but not any impossible dreams. I had stopped dreaming about us or about anything. I was just surviving, hoping to cross some finish line, perhaps dead, but at least still married. How ungracefilled is that? Basically, we had no relationship, and that finally hit me.
Do you remember our conversations about splitting up, leaving each other? Do you remember that? I thought I had lost you forever and you kept reminding me that, in reality, we never really had each other. And so there was nothing to lose. You are so wise, so absolutely filled with wisdom beyond your age. You are a very old soul. And then you reminded me for the upteenth time that you did not want to be possessed nor did you want to possess or control me. But I just didn't know any other way to do it.
And then you would confuse me. On minute you would tell me we need that separation and the next moment you were saying that you were not ready to let me go. Wow!
I don't know why all of this came up today. I'm trying to think what the significance of the day is, but nothing comes. The prayer for today ends with "Holy Friend, I grasp the Hope you held out to me....in both my hands and leap."
So my love, I will close our letter for today. I miss falling asleep with you in my arms and waking up with you still there. Hold me in whatever way you can.
Love, your friend,
Your best friend.